AN ERROR ANALYSIS OF DEFINITE AND
INDEFINITE ARTICLES IN STUDENTS WRITING :A
Study Of Ninth Grade Students Of SMP Negeri 2 Lingsar
In Academic Year 2017/2018
Submitted as a Partial Fulfillment for Sarjana Degree in English Department Faculty of Teacher Training and Education
University of Mataram
A JOURNAL By :
HAPINA WITHAKURNIA E1D 113064
ENGLISH EDUCATION PROGRAM LANGUAGE AND ART DEPARTMENT
FACULTY OF TEACHER TRAINING AND EDUCATION UNIVERSITY OF MATARAM
A Study OfNinth Grade Students Of SMP Negeri 2
Lingsar In Academic Year 2017/2018
Hapinawithakurnia E1D 113064
[email protected] Abstract
This study is conducted to know the categories and sources of errors that the ninth grade students of SMPN 2 Lingsar make in using the definite and indefinite articles in writing descriptive text. The categories of errors proposed by Corder (1973) and the sources of errors classification proposed by Brown (2007) were used in this research. Meanwhile, this research is a descriptive research that uses qualitative approach. The data used in this study was taken from students writing test, and four stages of error analysis proposed by Corder (1974) were adapted by the writer. As the result, the writer found that there were three categories of errors made by ninth grade students of SMPN 2 Lingsar those were omission of some required elements, addition of some unnecessary or incorrect elements and the selection of an incorrect element. And, there were two sources of srudents errors in using the article, those were Interlingual Transfer and Intralingual Transfer.
PENELITIAN PADA SISWA SISWA KELAS SEMBILAN SMP NEGERI 2 LINGSAR TAHUN AKADEMIK 2017/2018
HapinaWithakurnia E1D 113064
[email protected] Abstrak
Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk mengetahuikategoridansumber error siswa SMPN 2 Lingsardalammenggunakan definite and indefinite artikeldalammenulis descriptive text.Kategori error yang diusulkanolehCorder (1973) danklasifikasisumber error yang diusulkanoleh Brown (2007) digunakandalampenelitianini.Penelitianinimerupakanpenelitiandeskriptifmenggun
akanpendekatankualitatif.Data yang
digunakandalampenelitianinidiambildaritestulissiswa, danempattahapmenganalisa error yang diusulkanolehCorder (1974) di adaptasiolehpenulis.Sebagaihasilnya, penulismenemukanbahwaadatigakategori error yang dibuatolehsiswakelas 9 SMPN 2 Lingsaryaitu omission, addition and selection. Dan, adaduasumber error siswadalammenggunakanartikel, yaituInterlingual Transfer danIntralingual transfer.
I. INTRODUCTION
English leads as the main language used in the world. Almost all people learn
English in order to communicate with other people from different countries. So,
English is used as a means of global communication. Lobachev (2008) says that
books, newspapers and magazines, scholarly journals, films and videos, and web
pages mostly use English.
English becomes an essential language subject of education issues in
Indonesia. Realizing the importance of English as spoken and written
international communication, the Ministry Education of Indonesia includes
English as a compulsory subject to learn in Junior High School up to Senior High
School. It makes English commonly used in teaching and learning activities.
In learning English, there are certain skills that students need to learn, those
are listening, speaking, reading and writing. Listening and reading skills that
involve receiving messages are regarded as receptive skills. As productive skill,
writing is not like speaking skill nor other receptive skills.
Writing is a hard work which needs plenty of time for someone to work on It.
There is a set of rules that must be obeyed, that is grammar rules. One of the items
learned in grammar is article. Article consists of definite article, indefinite articles
and zero article or no article (Ø) . Definite article consists of ‘the’ and indefinite
article consists of ‘a’ and ‘an’. Therefore, most students have difficulties in using
the articles. We use indefinite article to refer to a particular person or thing in
Based on the writer’s experience while doing teaching practice (PPL) in
junior high school 2 Lingsar some students made errors in using the definite and
indefinite articles. Therefore, in this research the writer decided to analyze the
categories and the sources of students errors in using the articles. The writer
decided to choose the ninth grade students of SMP Negeri 2 Lingsar as the subject
of this research because they have learnt how to write descriptive text. Since they
have to produce their own written text, it is important to know the categories and
the sources of their errors in using the articles.
1.1.Research Questions
a. What are the categories of errors made by ninth grade students of
SMPN 2 Lingsar in using definite and indefinite articles in writing
descriptive text?
b. What are the sources of errors made by ninth grade students of SMPN
2 Lingsar in using definite and indefinite articles in writing descriptive
text?
1.2.Purpose of The Study
This study is conducted to know the categories and sources of errors that
the ninth grade students of SMPN 2 Lingsar make in using the definite and
indefinite articles in writing descriptive text.
II. LITERATURE REVIEW
Richards, J.C. et al (1992) cited in VacideErdogan (2005) say that
of their attention, fatigue, carelessness, or some other aspects of performance.
Mistakes can be self-corrected when their mind is concentrated on the subject.
Whereas, an error occurs because the learner does not know what is correct, and
thus cannot be self-corrected.
Ellis (1997) cited in VacideErdogan (2005) stated that in distinguishing
between an error and a mistake, it can be divided into two ways. The first one is to
check the consistency of learner’s performance. If the learner sometimes uses the
sentences in the correct form and sometimes in the wrong one, it is a mistake. For
example, “I had a apple ” then learner immediately corrected “ I had an apple”.
However, if the learner always uses the sentences incorrectly, because of
ignorance, then it is said as an error. For example, “ Air is cold today”. When a
learner always uses sentence like this, it is an error. The second way is to ask the
learner to try to correct his own deviant utterence. If the learner is unable to
corrrect, the deviations are errors, if the learner is successful, the deviations are
mistakes.
III. RESEARCH METHOD 3.1. Research Design
This research is a descriptive research that uses qualitative approach.
Descriptive reseach that uses qualitative approach is used to find out the
categories and the sources of students’ errors in using definite and indefinite
article at SMPN 2 Lingsar academic year 2017/2018.
The population of this research were the ninth grade students of
SMP Negeri 2 Lingsar in academic year 2017/2018. There were 9 classes
that consisted of 331 students.
3.2.2. Sample
As suggested by Arikunto (1998) that if the subject or population
is less than a hundred, it is better to take them all, then, if the subject or
population is in a massive number, researcher might take them for 10-15%
or 20-25% or more, for a random sampling. Following Arikunto, the writer
took 11 % or 36 students out of 331 as sample in this research.
In this research the writer used lottery technique in order to decide the
sample. Each student's name was symbolized by letter and numbers based
on their classes and attendance list. Therefore, 36 students were selected
randomly by the writer before collecting the data.
3.3 Method of Data Collection
In this research the writer used the data which were collected from students
writing test.
Instruments Used in Collecting Data - Test
The writer asked students to work individually to write a descriptive text
twice based on some topics and instructions in 90 minutes. The students chose
one of 2 topics below:
First session topics :
2) My mother
Second session topics :
1) My pet
2) My idol
The following instructions were given to the students before they started to write:
First session :
a. Choose one of two topics below! and start to write your own descriptive
text!
b. Write a descriptive text that consists of maximum 15 sentences!
3.4 Method of Data Analysis
All of the data in this research were taken from the test. In determining
and analyzing students’ errors, the writer adapted four steps proposed by Corder
(1974): Collection of sample of learner language→Identification of
errors→Description of errors→Explanation of errors.
IV. RESULT
From the data obtained, the writer found some errors of ommision,
addition and selection made by the ninth grade students of SMP Negeri 2 Lingsar
in using the definite and indefinite articles in writing descriptive text.
4.1.The Error of Omission
The error of omission means the absence of an item which must be
present in a well-formed utterance (Corder,1973). Based on the test result,
it was found that students tended to omit the indefinite article ‘a’ and ‘an’
Table 4.1.The errors of Omission in Students’ Writing who very attention to me and my father.
-My mother is (...) person which patient, hard worker.
-My mother has a
-My idol is Ranti Maria. She is (...) beautiful acress, she is gentle and familiar. rabbit has a short tail and long hair, (...) tail is cute and (...) hair is soft and beautiful.
4.2.The Error of Addition
The Error of Addition means the presence of an item which should
not be there (Corder,1973). In this research the writer found this category
of errors in students descriptive text.
No The error of addition in using the article ‘a’
The error of addition in using the article ‘an’
The error of addition in using the article ‘the’
1 -She has recorded (a) three children’s albums,
-My mother is also good with others, she is happy to help (a) friends and (a) neighbours who are in trouble.
-He work at the office. he love to drink (the) coffe, he drinks coffe every day. -lili has a white fur and (the) long claw
-she have (the) round face and beautiful eyes.
- My pet is (the) bird. Bird is a tame animal.
-It is (the) black green and yellow.
4.3.The Error of Selection
The error of selection made by learner if the learner chooses the wrong
item in the right place (Corder,1973). Different from omission where the items
are not supplied at all, in error of selection, the learner supplies something
even though that is incorrect.
Table 4.3.The errors of Selection in Students’ Writing
ussuallyscratches my arm when I play with him.
me and my young sister. -She has (the) white skin, and black hair. she has (the) pointed nose
-I have (a) idol.
-Raisa is a singer. she have (a) atractive voice.
4.4.Explanation of Errors
In this step the writer identified why students made an error in writing.
The errors that had been classified were divided based on the sources of errors
proposed by Brown (1980), who classified the sources of errors into
interlingual transfer, intralingual transfer, context of learning and
communication strategies. In this research the writer found that students made
the errors because of Interlingual transfer and intralingual transfer.
4.4.1. Interlingual Transfer
Interlingual transfer or interference is the source of errors which is
ussually made by beginners (Brown,1980) . This source of errors is the
negative influence of first language before the second language system is
familiar for the learner.
Table 4.4.Interlingual Transfer Errors The Interlingual transfer errors
- he is (...) active man - mochi is (...) active cat
The writer found that the errors made by the students were caused by
interlingual transfer because Indonesian language has different grammatical rules
from English. In Indonesian language there is no specific rules in using the
articles in the same uttarances such as the sentences above. This kind of errors
happened as the result of the negative influence of students’ mother tongue before
the English language system is familiar for the students. Students tended to
translate the sentences from their first language into the target language.
4.4.2. Intralingual Transfer
Intralingual transfer is a negative transfer within the target language (Brown,1980). In other words, this is the incorrect generalization of rules within the target language.
Table 4.5.Intralingual Transfer Errors The intralingual transfer errors
- My pet is duck. My duck food is (the) snail and drink (the) water.
- It has (the) round eyes.
- she have (the) round face and beautiful eyes.
- My pet is (the) bird. Bird is a tame animal.
- It is (the) black green and yellow.
the students applied some of rules of English language in a wrong way, such as in the sentences above.
V. CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTION 5.1.Conclusion
1. There were three categories of errors made by ninth grade students of
SMPN 2 Lingsar. those were omission of some required elements, addition
of some unnecessary or incorrect elements and the selection of an incorrect
element.
2. There were two sources of srudents errors in using the article; those were
Interlingual Transfer and Intralingual Transfer
5.2.Suggestion
For the English Teacher
a. English teachers should give their students more exercises about how
to use definite and indefinite article in order to write the students
familiar with the rules in using the definite and definite articles.
b. The teacher should explain more abut the differences between the definite and indefinite articles to the students in order to make the students gather more knowledge abut the articles.
1. For the Students
a. The students should practice more about descriptive text in order to
gather more knowledge about how to make a descriptive text.
b. The students should learn more about how to use the definite and
indefinite articles.
c. The students have to be aware about the differences between definite
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